Valentine Secrets
by Mandy of the Amoeba
Summary: Picks up right after My Valentine Ghoul...just a short little one-shot!


A/N: This picks up RIGHT where My Valentine Ghoul leaves off, where Morgana is chasing Darkwing over a hill and trying to zap him. Since we never see her really zap him excessively after that episode, I figured he must have done something to prove that he trusts her and all that good stuff. Plus, they have to somehow progress from him being too nervous to kiss her in My Valentine Ghoul to the 'necking' line in Monsters R Us. Oh, and thanks to Nicole for inadvertantly giving me a couple of ideas for this!

* * *

Abruptly, Darkwing stopped running, causing Morgana to first overshoot her target, then stop short inches from him in order to keep from colliding. "Morg, wait a minute!" he demanded, trying to catch his breath.  
  
"No!" she exclaimed, still blinded by her anger and frustration with him. She raised her hands to cast again despite his protests, but, steeling up his nerve and taking a chance on getting fried, he grabbed both her hands with his, then kissed her before she could argue anymore. It was the first real kiss he had given her; usually, she made the moves, instead. As egotistical as he could be sometimes, when it came to being romantic with Morgana, he was too shy to be the one to initiate anything other than a peck on the cheek.  
  
Several seconds later, he pulled away, watching to gauge her reaction and still keeping hold of her hands in case she still wanted to zap him. Much to the delight of his ego, she was breathless, and much calmer than she had been moments before. "Now...can we talk a minute before you fricassee me again?"  
  
"Okay," she finally replied, still a little bit addled by his sudden change of attitude. She sat down on a headstone, waiting for him to do the same, and he flinched a little.  
  
"Um...there's a nice bench over there. We can both sit on it," he added hurriedly before she could accuse him of disliking her choice of atmosphere or something. Taking her hand, he led her over to the bench and sat down. "Look, Morg...I don't know how much more of this zapping thing I can take! I mean, I may not be the expert on romance, but I'm pretty sure that coming home from a date with first degree burns is not normal!"  
  
"Well, I'M not normal!" she argued, crossing her arms over her chest. "Besides, it's your own fault for being so insensitive!"  
  
"Just because I prefer my food to be an inanimate object doesn't mean I'm insensitive! It's not my fault you have weird taste!" he complained. Her eyes narrowed again.  
  
"Oooooh, you see! That's EXACTLY the kind of extra, unnecessary comments you make that make my blood boil!" she exclaimed angrily, and he automatically cowered back slightly when he realized there were a few stray sparks flying from her fingertips. He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again. Darkwing Duck rarely ever admitted when he was wrong, even when he knew it to be true...but this was different. Ever since he had seen what he thought was Morgana cheating on him with Negaduck, he had begun to realize just how important she was to him. And if that meant forcing down his pride once in a while...he would try.  
  
"Morg?" he asked, taking her hands in his again. "Can we just start this night over?" She blinked at him, surprised to see him dropping an argument so easily. "Things haven't exactly turned out the way I wanted them to...I really wanted tonight to be special."  
  
"Oh, Dark...I'm sorry things ended up the way they did..." Morgana sighed, looking a little downcast. "But you DO tend to say a lot of things that upset me...maybe I'm just oversensitive..."  
  
There was a short, awkward silence before he asked hesitantly, "So...do you still like me? I mean...'cause, you know, I...I like you, and..." He trailed off, looking down at the ground shyly instead of up at her. "I really kinda wanna make this work."  
  
She was quiet for a long moment, making him wonder if he'd said the wrong thing, but finally, she answered. "So do I," she said quietly, gently touching his hand where it lay on the bench.  
  
"Really?" he asked, hopeful as he finally raised his gaze to her face. He was immediately lost in a pair of emerald green eyes, just before she leaned in to kiss him.  
  
"Really," she replied, smiling at him as she pulled away again.  
  
"So...you wanna go get something to eat? Maybe we should just try a different place entirely," he added, hoping his last comment sounded casual and nonoffensive. Apparently, it didn't, because she frowned again.  
  
"Darkwing, what's wrong with the places I pick?"  
  
"Morg, pleeeease let's not get into this again..." he begged, cringing. "I'm trying, I swear...and if I try really hard to not upset you, can you try really hard to not scorch me or turn me into anything unpleasant?"  
  
She sighed a little, but nodded her acceptance before asking, "Well, where did you have in mind to eat, then?"  
  
He pondered a minute. "Well...most places are closed this time of night....nice places, anyway." There was another short silence while he thought, then said, "The only thing that I know for sure is open is the Hamburger Hippo down the block...they're open twenty two and a half hours, seven days a week. Of course, that's not exactly romantic..."  
  
"Anyplace I'm with you is romantic in my book," she replied, quoting him with a sly grin. He smiled a little in return.  
  
"Hamburger Hippo it is, then!" he replied, standing up and offering her his hand. She hesitated before taking it.  
  
"Dark, there's still just one thing..." she began slowly, and he flinched a little, hoping this wasn't going to cause another argument. Morgana sighed and continued, "I just...I really don't feel like you trust me. You just don't seem to be able to believe that I'm not a crook anymore...I've changed, Dark."  
  
"It's not that, Morgana..." he said, sighing.  
  
"Is it because I'm a sorceress? Because I can't change that part of me. That's who I truly am," she replied, with a note of finality in her voice.  
  
"No, that's not it! I do trust you, Morgana, as much as I trust anyone," he reassured hurriedly. He paused for a moment, thinking of the two other people he trusted the most, which gave him an idea. "I can even prove it to you!" he exclaimed.  
  
"How?" she questioned, looking up at him with wide eyes. It never ceased to amaze him how she could seem to innocent one minute and so forboding the next.  
  
"Well," he began, suddenly nervous. "I could tell you my secret identity."  
  
There was a short silence, and Morgana's heart did a flip-flop. "You would do that?" she asked softly. Of course, she could easily have found out his true identity...it didn't take much to do a simple locating spell. But she had always wanted that to be something he told her himself.  
  
He nodded in response, taking her hand. "I can't tell you here, though," he added, glancing around. She frowned.  
  
"...you can't tell me in the middle of a graveyard?" she questioned. "I mean...I don't think anyone here is going to tell your secrets, Dark..."  
  
"You never can be too careful!" he insisted. "Look, we'll go eat, and then I'll...um...okay, we'll go to the tower, and I'll tell you there, and then I'll take you home," he decided. Morgana smiled and nodded a little.  
  
"All right."

* * *

"Launchpad would have a heart attack if he knew you'd never been to Hamburger Hippo before," Darkwing said forty-five minutes later as they entered the tower.  
  
"I must admit, it wasn't bad for Normal food. Their mushrooms were well-cooked, at least," she replied. He had to hide a smile; she had ordered exactly what he knew she would, a mushroom melt with extra mushrooms. Her fiasco with the pizza toppings hadn't quelled her appetite for the fungus in the least.  
  
"Well...here we are," he said nervously. She smiled.  
  
"I know, Dark, I've been here before. Remember?" she said.  
  
"Oh, yeah...heh heh," he replied. "Um...well, I'll just...go change," he added, gesturing to the changing screen near one wall. She nodded, and he slipped behind the screen.  
  
_'What am I doing?'_ he thought, taking off his mask and hat. Ever since he had first said he would reveal his secret identity to Morgana, he had been having second thoughts. After all, she had been attracted to him as the mysterious masked mallard...not as _Drake_ Mallard. As Drake, he wasn't mysterious at all...and while that might have been fine for a sweet, surburbanite woman, he wasn't sure how the seductive Morgana Macawber would take to that simplicity. But it was too late to turn back now, so he was just going to have to cross his fingers and hope for the best.  
  
On the other side of the screen, Morgana was a little nervous herself. She wasn't really sure how she was going to react to seeing her boyfriend without his mask...it was all she had ever seen him with. And, truthfully, she had first been drawn to his mystery and intrigue. As Darkwing Duck, he was a creature of the night like herself. She wasn't quite sure what to expect of his other identity, the one that would be so new to her.  
  
_'But he's still your Dark,'_ a little voice said, and she couldn't help but smile. Her Dark wasn't really that mysterious all the time, anyway. He was sometimes sweet, sometimes exasperating, sometimes charming, sometimes romantic...and sometimes, he stuck his foot in his mouth. But, in spite of the way he infuriated her sometimes...he was still her Dark. Nothing could change that, no matter what he might be like underneath the mask.  
  
"Well...ta-da," a voice announced a little weakly. Morgana looked up to see a duck standing a few feet away from her, wearing a peach colored shirt and a green sweatervest. "Drake Mallard, surbubanite father." There was a short silence, during which she studied Drake and he studied a spaghetti stain on the floor. Then, she closed the distance between them.  
  
"Drake," she repeated, getting used to the name rather than addressing him. She reached to gently touch his face where the mask had been.  
  
"Morg, I...maybe I shouldn't have done this," he said, sighing. "I mean, you're used to dating the dashing Darkwing Duck..."  
  
She silenced him with a hand on his beak. "Look at me, Drake," she murmured, and he finally raised his gaze to meet hers. Instantly, he was lost in her emerald eyes, and it took a moment to realize that those eyes were smiling into his blue ones. "You're still the same, with or without the mask...and I..." She trailed off, catching herself before she said those fatal three words; she knew she meant them, but was suddenly afraid to say what she felt outloud.  
  
"Morgana," Drake replied, taking her hands in his. He gulped nervously before continuing. "I...I think I love you."  
  
Her heart soared, and joyful tears stung at her eyes. "Oh, Dark..." she whispered, reverting back to her nickname for him in spite of the fact that he was out of costume. "I love you, too."  
  
Then, for the second time that night, he made the first move and kissed her gently before she even had the chance to act first. And this time, he wasn't worried about getting fried. 


End file.
